The Cheese Is the Thing
by Dawnstorm101
Summary: Loki is giving his daughter shapeshifting lessons, but she seems to be hiding something from him. So when Thor shows up, he asks for a little help figuring out what.


A/N: This was written for a challenge, and my prompt was "Step away from the cheese." I think I had too much fun with it...

* * *

Thor strolled through his palace's light green corridors, making his way to the gym for some relaxing exercise. The floor was covered in black mats that extended partially up the walls before giving way to a light blue paint. The sole exterior wall was all window, leading out to a large balcony in case someone wanted to do something outdoors, or just escape the stench of sweaty men, though it was empty at the moment. The room was split into various sections – weights, rowers, treadmills, a boxing ring, and more – with a drink cooler sitting on either side of the door.

Thor meant to head for the treadmills, the phone and wireless earbuds Tony made him promise to keep and use tucked in the pocket of his black sweats ready for use, but he came up short at the sight of a plain white beach towel spread out in the middle of the floor. In the center of it sat a plain old block of cheese.

"Odd," Thor said, kneeling beside it. But his stomach rumbled hungrily, so he reached for it.

"Step away from the cheese," a voice warned.

Thor's hand froze as he jerked his head up. Loki rose from the ground with a flourish, melting out of the shadows cast by the boxing ring. Given his all-black suit and the warning glint in his eyes, the prince would've made most run in terror. Thor just stood back up, crossing his arms and arching an eyebrow.

"You just can't help yourself, can you?"

In a ripple of green light, the shadows vanished and Loki's expression softened into a pleased smirk. "No. I had you going there, for a second."

"Did not."

"Did too. I saw it in your eyes. Also, Thor, this is why it was so easy to stab you when we were boys: You just go around picking up random cheese. And snakes."

Thor huffed. "We're in one of the most secure palaces on Earth, _why_ would I be so suspicious as to not eat food when I'm hungry? Speaking of which…" He pointed down. "Why is there cheese?"

As Thor uncrossed his arms, Loki crossed his. "That cheese is my daughter." Lightly, he nudged her with the tip of one booted toe. "She should've changed back by now."

"Shapeshifting training?"

"Yup."

Thor flashed a smirk of his own, finding a way to get a little payback. "I remember your early days. Mostly that one time you turned into a lamb, couldn't change back, and Volstagg chased you for an hour before Heimdall finally told Mother."

Loki pursed his lips. "It took five minutes for her to stop laughing long enough to help me. I went vegetarian for a month."

"And you still don't eat lamb," Thor finished, chuckling.

"You try running from a hungry Volstagg for an hour," Loki muttered. "You start empathizing with the poor things."

Movement distracted them, drawing their gazes back to the cheese. It had turned light brown, and was now wriggling, twisting and expanding. More colors dawned on it – black at one end, lilac and grey in the middle, and a little more black at the bottom. Parts of it dented and pulled apart, while other parts bulged out and grew together. Two dots of bright blue surrounded by white appeared, stretching into a pair of eyes.

Finally, Thor and Loki were looking at a teenage girl, lying on her back and propped up on her elbows. Her black hair was swept back into a braid, and she wore a long-sleeved, lilac mini dress over dark grey leggings tucked into black boots reaching to her mid-calf. She panted a little, grabbing the towel to swipe some sweat off her light brown forehead, and smiled at Loki.

"I took too long, didn't I?" she asked, not quite succeeding at hiding her dejection. She had her father's eyes, right down to the mischievous glint, but at only sixteen, she had yet to master the art of lying as efficiently as Loki.

"You're doing your best, Frigga, and that's what matters," Loki evaded reassuringly, bending down to take her hand and help her up. Frost Giant blue rippled across their hands at the contact, fading as she let go to straighten out her clothes.

"That's what I thought," she said. "Also, hey, Uncle Thor."

"Hello," he greeted the niece he had almost just eaten, reaching out to brush some stray hairs off her forehead. "How's it going?"

"It's… going," she said with a weary attempt at optimism.

Behind her, Loki's face fell a little. "Why don't you go get a drink, darling?" he suggested.

She nodded, stepping past Thor towards the coolers. Thor turned to watch her, narrowing his eyes at the distinct lack of bounce in her step. The girl loved life, surrounded as she was by doting friends and family, her dream to join the Guardians never far from her mind, and was rarely without that gleam of joy. "What's up with her?" Thor whispered.

"I don't know," Loki replied, obviously distressed as he moved to Thor's side, watching his only biological child. "She's normally pretty open about these things, but she won't tell me, or Val." He turned his gaze on Thor. "Can you talk to her?"

"Of course," Thor said, patting Loki's back. "Worst comes to worst, I'll call Natasha."

"She is a surprisingly good aunt," Loki said mildly.

"Indeed," Thor agreed. Even now, over three decades after discovering that she was the aunt to Clint's once-secret children and after it had come in handy many times, that side of the spy still surprised him.

He went over to Frigga, smiling as she chugged a red Gatorade. "You've been practicing with your mother, I see."

She swallowed hastily to laugh. "Believe me, I still have a long way to go there, too."

Thor rubbed her back as she coughed a little, taking the opportunity to steer her towards the door. "Come on, you've made me hungry for cheese."

Frigga stopped, eyeing him. "Uncle Thor, did you try to eat me?"

"…Nonsense. Come along, Frigga."

"So you did," she concluded. "And, uh, should we tell Dad?" she asked, gesturing at the man now disdainfully poking at weights.

"Maybe he'll actually use those things if we leave him alone," Thor muttered. "So, no. To the kitchen!"

Frigga looked relieved as he guided her out the door, the slight heels of her boots clunking against the white tiled floors as they walked to the royal family's private kitchen, used mostly by Loki, his son Freyr, or Thor's daughter Sif when at least one of them had both the time and desire to cook for themselves. But, predictably, it was empty when Thor and Frigga got there.

As Earth kitchens went, it was fairly standard. There were white cabinets and black granite countertops with silver flecks. The appliances were a few years old, all smart tech in stainless steel. It doubled as a dining room, a glass table with stainless steel legs positioned near the wall with a bay window looking out over the fields of Wakanda. Thor headed for the fridge to get the cheese, while Frigga went to the peninsula stretching out from the countertops, sitting on one of the cushioned dark blue stools.

"Dad told you to talk to me, didn't he?" she asked.

He picked out a container of those little cheese squares, bringing it to her with a wry smile on his face. "You always were as smart as him, you know that?"

"Only when I'm pretending to not have anxiety," she replied, nibbling at a piece of cheese. She paused, considering the food. "Is this cannibalism now?" she wondered.

Thor shrugged. "Your father still eats most of the foods he's turned into."

"Most?" she echoed.

"Ask to practice turning into a lamb," Thor said with a wink. She grinned. Thor bit into his own slice, content to let her keep the expression for a moment longer.

Frigga finished her first piece and reached for a second, clearing her throat as she did. "So, Dad sent you here…" she prompted.

"Yes," Thor confirmed, swallowing down his cheese. "But I would've brought you here even if he hadn't."

"…That obvious, eh?"

"Afraid so," Thor said, leaning against the peninsula. "What's wrong, Frigga?"

She bit her lip, using her empty hand to rub her other one in the same tic Loki had gotten from Mother. "It's… it's stupid."

"Math is stupid," Thor said. "Tony's insistence on using stupid nicknames is stupid. Reality television is stupid."

"You watch reality TV. All the time. Actually, didn't I walk past you watching _Survivor on the Moon_ at like three this morning?

"The _point_ ," Thor overrode her, "is that there are many stupid thi- Wait, why were you up at three in the morning?"

She shrugged, popping another bit of cheese into her mouth. "Sindri will find out later."

Thor took a breath, ready to press her for a clearer answer, then decided to leave it for Loki to deal with. "There are many stupid things, Frigga. Your feelings aren't one of them."

She twirled her cheese between her fingers, her gaze on the silver flecks in the countertops. Loki had picked them out, saying they reminded him of the stars he'd always loved, and Frigga had picked up that fondness, the father-daughter duo spending many a night on the roof when one or both of them was upset. She ran her fingers over them, like she was connecting the dots, before relenting with a sigh.

"I know what the ability to shapeshift means to him," she said, concentrating on her hand. Her brown coloring disappeared, replaced by spreading splotches of Jotun blue. Delicate lines appeared on her hands and face, her eyes taking on a red glow. "He says this doesn't bother him, that he likes that I took after him like this, and I know he tries his best to mean it, but he doesn't, not really. He hates the reminders of… what he is. What he did."

Thor ducked his head, remembering all the times he'd caught Loki staring at the hand that had first turned, or stumbled upon yet another article questioning whether Loki was really good again, even after all these years. He remembered, too, the efforts they'd undergone to shield their young children from the past, and the conversation the brothers had had with each one when they were old enough. Every time, Thor had seen the puzzle pieces clicking together in their minds, realizing why they had had such restricted internet access, why some human kids weren't allowed to play with them, why Loki distanced himself from them a little in public.

But Frigga had always had it the worst. Of Loki's four children, she was the sole biological one, and the world knew it. The press had followed Val's pregnancy like hawks, waiting to see if she would birth another evil conqueror. Even the Asgardians, raised as they were on extreme prejudice against Frost Giants, had been wary. When Frigga was born with normal Asgardian coloring, Thor had felt enough to relief to feel guilty about it. But when Loki picked her up and she grabbed his finger in her tiny newborn fist, their Asgardian appearances melted away, until they matched the race many Asgardians had been raised to despise.

Thor, Val, and the many heroes that had befriended the trickster after the Infinity War all raced to assure him that it was fine, but the damage had been done over a thousand years before Frigga was even a glimmer in her parents' eyes, reinforced by Loki's failed invasion. So she had spent her sixteen years of life being shielded from the press and never getting to so much as hold her father's hand in public.

"You know he truly does love you, though, right?" Thor checked.

"Of course," she assured him instantly. "I just… I think that might be the problem."

Thor leaned back. "And now I'm confused."

She faded back to her normal brown, scrubbing at her eyes. "Shapeshifting is a useful skill, and I _want_ to learn, but I just… I can't get the hang of it like he can. And if I can't, then he'll be disappointed in me, and- and we can never- we can never just _hug._ "

She cut herself off then, dropping her tear-filled gaze to her hands, now twisting tightly together. Thor reached over, slipping his hand between hers until she was squeezing him instead of herself. He squeezed back, taking hold of her shoulder with his other hand.

"Frigga, Loki will never be disappointed in you about shapeshifting. It's not an easy skill to master," he pointed out gently. "It took your father decades to master it, and centuries more to get where he's at. There were times when he probably would've been stuck as half horse, half man for a week if our mother hadn't helped him, and that was _after_ spending years learning how to become something that complex. The fact that you're not still part cheese is quite the feat."

"Really?" she asked, lip wobbling.

"Really," Thor promised, holding her gaze. "Just keep practicing. And in the meantime, if you really feel that way, just talk to him. Festering emotions just end up hurting everyone, and he doesn't want you to hurt. Especially not because of him."

Frigga sniffled. "You really think that'll work?"

"Believe me," Thor murmured, "the _last_ thing Loki wants to do is be a distant father. You and your siblings mean the world to him – if you think he can do something better, then he'll listen."

"Ok," Frigga said, taking a steadying breath as she wiped at her eyes. "Ok, I'll go- Crap."

She sighed heavily at her right hand, which had turned back to cheese. Thor chuckled, straightening up. "Just like the old days. Back to Loki we go, then."

-MCU-

Loki settled back into his original spot against the boxing ring to wait, conjuring a book to read in the meantime. He didn't read it much, though, and mostly just drummed his fingers against the pages as he wondered. Had he messed up? Or was he overreacting to normal teenage behavior? Sif had gotten into her own random moods, right?

The door opened, jerking him from his thoughts. Thor stepped inside, guiding Frigga forward. She was focused on her right hand, muttering at it, and Loki noticed with a nostalgic twitch of the lips that it had turned back to cheese. He stood up to meet them, taking hold of her wrist and running his other hand over hers. In a moment, it was back to its regular flesh-and-bone self.

She shook her hand out, flexing it to make sure everything worked. "Thanks, Daddy."

"Any time, darling," he said, moving his hand to her shoulder. He glanced up at Thor, and he dipped his head a little. "So, how did your talk go?"

Frigga hesitated, looking up at Thor. "Go on," he encouraged, ruffling her hair before stepping away, leaving them with a little privacy. She pursed her lips after him, smoothing her hair.

"Frigga?" Loki pressed quietly, catching her chin lightly and turning her back towards him. "What is it?"

She bit her lip, wringing her hands together as she looked nervously up at him. And then it all came pouring out, the insecurities, the fear of disappointing him. And then, hesitant yet rushed, she finished with a tiny, "And- and sometimes I just want to hug you, but… you know."

Loki's heart sank with every word. He knelt on one knee, bringing them to roughly the same height, and cupped her face in one hand, holding her hands with his other. Then he pressed a kiss to her forehead, keeping it deliberately long as he felt the blue chill spread throughout him. Finally, he pulled back, releasing her hands to cradle her face and look into her eyes.

"I will _never_ be disappointed in you, sweetheart," he stated firmly. "All right? You are my baby girl, and I will always love you. Always. And if you want to hug me, _hug me._ I adore you respecting my desires, but I have more than enough magic for the both of us. I won't get mad, and I won't push you away. I promise."

In response, she pulled him into a tight hug, nestling her face in his shoulder. Loki held her close, letting his eyes drift shut in relief. "I'm sorry for pressuring you," he whispered.

She shook her head. "It's ok, Daddy."

Loki smiled. Just as they began to pull apart, a greater weight smushed them back together. It was Thor, wrapping them both in a crushing bear hug, pressing them into his chest. "You guys are adorable."

"Thor," Loki rasped, pushing against him. "Thor, I can't breathe."

Thor chuckled deeply, as if he were trying to pull off maniacal evil laughter. "Then my plan is working."

Frigga wriggled beside him, shifting just a little. Through laughter, she pointed out, "Uncle Thor, you left your cheese out."

Thor fled in an instant, screaming, "MY CHEESE!"

They fell apart, panting, clothes and hair mussed, but still laughing. "That's my girl."

Sindri picked that moment to burst in, his meticulously-maintained platinum blond hair now neon pink and frizzier than the frizziest poodle. He jabbed a finger in Frigga's direction. "YOU!"

Frigga dove behind Loki, peering around him at her livid younger brother. "Still say you're never disappointed in me, Dad?" she whispered.

Sindri advanced, and Frigga let out a yelp. Loki reached back to haul her to his feet, only for his hand to find empty air. He looked back, prepared to find her scurrying away. And promptly sighed at what he actually found.

 _That's my girl,_ he thought, _turning into a block of cheese to avoid her brother._

Sindri lunged forward anyway, needing revenge for his hair. And, for the second time that day, Loki found himself saying, "Step away from the cheese."

* * *

A/N: (...cue Loki questioning his life choices)

The jokes are ridiculous and yet I can see all of them actually happening? But honestly, lines like "That cheese is my daughter" and "he greeted the niece he had almost just eaten" are like exactly why I got into writing, like you have _no idea_ how amazing it felt to actually type those things


End file.
